1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an endoscope including an endoscope connector connected to external equipment, an endoscope apparatus, and a method of connecting external equipment to an endoscope.
2. Description of the Related Art
As is well known, an endoscope has been widely used in such fields as the medical field and the industrial field. In the endoscope used in the medical field, an elongated insertion section of the endoscope is inserted into a body cavity of a subject to observe an organ in the body cavity. Further, if necessary, with the use of a treatment instrument inserted into a treatment instrument insertion channel of the endoscope, therapy, treatment, and so forth can be performed on tissue in the body cavity.
As an example of the configuration of the endoscope, there is a well-known configuration in which main components of the endoscope are formed by an elongated insertion section, an operation section provided consecutively to a proximal end side of the insertion section, a universal cord having one end connected to the operation section, and an endoscope connector provided to the other end of the universal cord to be connected to external equipment.
The external equipment includes, for example, a light source device which supplies a light source to the endoscope, a video processor which controls the image pickup operation of an image pickup device, such as a CCD (Charge Coupled Device), provided at the focal position of a group of lenses including an objective lens located at, for example, the distal end of the insertion section of the endoscope, and which performs image processing on a picked up endoscopic mage, a suction device which serves as a suction source in suctioning body fluid and so forth present in the body cavity through a suction channel, and a magnification control device which changes the magnification of the picked up image by advancing and retreating the group of lenses provided to the distal end of the insertion section of the endoscope.
Therefore, the endoscope is inserted with, for example, the suction channel communicating with the treatment instrument insertion channel, a light guide, and signal cables including an image pickup cable and a magnification change cable, which are connected to various devices of the external equipment in the endoscope connector.
The endoscope connector is provided with a plurality of connector portions for connecting the various devices of the external equipment to the suction channel, the light guide, the signal cables, and so forth, respectively.
As an example of the connection of the various devices of the external equipment to the plurality of connector portions of the endoscope connector, a connector portion for the light guide is first connected to the light source device, and then an electrical cable extending from the video processor (hereinafter referred to as the video processor cable) is connected to an electrical connector portion for the image pickup cable (hereinafter referred to as the image pickup connector portion).
Then, an electrical cable extending from the magnification control device (hereinafter referred to as the magnification control cable) is connected to an electrical connector portion for the magnification change (hereinafter referred to as the magnification change connector portion). Further, a tube extending from the suction device is connected to a connector portion for the suction. Thereby, the plurality of connector portions of the endoscope connector are connected to the various devices of the external equipment.
The above-described configuration in which the plurality of connector portions are provided to the endoscope connector to be connected to the various devices of the external equipment is well known, as disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 3514979, for example.
Japanese Patent No. 3514979 focuses particularly on an input-output electrical connector out of the plurality of connectors provided to the endoscope connector, and discloses a configuration in which the image pickup connector portion forming the first electrical connector and the magnification change connector portion forming the second electrical connector are provided on the same side in the endoscope connector, i.e., the image pickup connector portion and the magnification change connector portion are provided on one side of the endoscope connector.
According to the above configuration, the direction of connecting the video processor cable to the image pickup connector portion is the same as the direction of connecting the magnification control cable to the magnification change connector portion with respect to the endoscope connector. The configuration therefore enables an operator to easily connect the respective cables to the image pickup connector portion and the magnification change connector portion.